You claim that "Mexico's level of corruption is quite average by world standards, and it's level of violence is lower than many countries, and it's actually much lower than in the past. Before the 1990's Mexico had a murder rate of about 100 per 100,000. It went down to 10 per 100,000 up to 2006, and since then it has gone up to 18-20 per 100,000."

You are blatantly lying. Mexico's murder rate has never been 100 per 100 thousand people. In fact, I don't think any country in the world has ever had such a murder rate in peace time. It is true that Mexico's murder rate declined steadily from the 1980's till 2006. But ever since it has nearly trebled, from 8 per 100 thousand to 22 per 100 thousand (Calderon dixit, August 2011).

The truth is that Mexico has become one of the world's most dangerous countries in the last 4 years. Unless you're in the payroll of the President, I don't see why you'd come out and deny that fact. As a Mexican living in Mexico City I can't be fooled, the country is truly messed up, vast swathes of the country are "failed states".

As for corruption, I'd just like to point out that Mexico's score in Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index has decreased since 2000. Anyone who lives in Mexico can attest to the fact that corruption is incredibly entrenched here. Few countries in the world have a half-a-million police force that cooperates so enthusiastically with criminals. Few countries have such porous prisons, from which thousands of prisoners have broken out in the last five years. Mexico is so corrupt it can't even enforce the rule of law in its own prisons, its own custom houses, its own police corps.

Come on, Zerge. Accept it: Mexico is truly messed up, violence is out of control, the current government's fight against the cartels is an absolute failure. Don't act as if you were a cheerleader of the current government, even if you are in their payroll.

You claim that "Mexico's level of corruption is quite average by world standards, and it's level of violence is lower than many countries, and it's actually much lower than in the past. Before the 1990's Mexico had a murder rate of about 100 per 100,000. It went down to 10 per 100,000 up to 2006, and since then it has gone up to 18-20 per 100,000."

You are blatantly lying. Mexico's murder rate has never been 100 per 100 thousand people. In fact, I don't think any country in the world has ever had such a murder rate in peace time. It is true that Mexico's murder rate declined steadily from the 1980's till 2006. But ever since it has nearly trebled, from 8 per 100 thousand to 22 per 100 thousand (Calderon dixit, August 2011).

The truth is that Mexico has become one of the world's most dangerous countries in the last 4 years. Unless you're in the payroll of the President, I don't see why you'd come out and deny that fact. As a Mexican living in Mexico City I can't be fooled, the country is truly messed up, vast swathes of the country are "failed states".

As for corruption, I'd just like to point out that Mexico's score in Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index has decreased since 2000. Anyone who lives in Mexico can attest to the fact that corruption is incredibly entrenched here. Few countries in the world have a half-a-million police force that cooperates so enthusiastically with criminals. Few countries have such porous prisons, from which thousands of prisoners have broken out in the last five years. Mexico is so corrupt it can't even enforce the rule of law in its own prisons, its own custom houses, its own police corps.

Come on, Zerge. Accept it: Mexico is truly messed up, violence is out of control, the current government's fight against the cartels is an absolute failure. Don't act as if you were a cheerleader of the current government, even if you are in their payroll.

Mexico's level of corruption is quite average by world standards, and it's level of violence is lower than many countries, and it's actually much lower than in the past. Before the 1990's Mexico had a murder rate of about 100 per 100,000. It went down to 10 per 100,000 up to 2006, and since then it has gone up to 18-20 per 100,000.

So no, macroeconomically, corruption and violence have less of an impact that what you would think.

And talking about drug trade, almost every single ton of drugs that reach the US border gets delivered to every school, corner and club in the US. That means that drugs are trafficked across the US practically unopposed. Therefore, the US has a worst drug trafficking (and consumption) problem than Mexico.

Please, everybody, you have to realize that the MAIN problem in Mexico right now is that the government is opposing the cartels, instead of ignoring them, like every other planet in the world (except Colombia). That will pass soon.

@Zerge: If you check PISA results 2009 for Shanghai, China, and compare them with those of Mexico,DF (which are the best in Mexico by far) you will see the scores of Shanghai are the best in the world, number one,quite on top of everybody else, while those of Mexico DF are,if it was a country, around the position number 40 (and pretty much last of the OECD).

Sorry to say so, but the MIT/McDonnalds extension of your metaphor, although written with the intent of being a humorous hyperbole, turns out to be far closer to the truth than many would want to imagine possible.

@Econoclastic
Your statement is highly tautological
Mexico is moving forward, no doubt, but the corruption and crime anchor is slowing progress down.
The drug trade, corruption and the violence, are just symptoms of a culture that allowed them to grow to a level that permeated to all levels of society.
As a famous band from Wales predicted in a song "If you tolerate this your children will be next"

I hate to rain on everyone's parade about the article and its positive attitude towards Mexico's future...but since you like to point out numbers...since yesterday there are +60 people who won't get to live a promising future in Mexico and that is +60,000 Mexicans too many...
Let's stop pretending that these are unrelated events that will not have a significant impact in Mexico or will simply vanish from one day to the next.
The culture that fosters indifference and corruption is not exclusive of the politicians and drug cartels we all like to blame for our disgraceful situation, this is a culture shared and fostered by all Mexicans.
We should be further along than where we are as a society.

Congratulations to The Economist for a very well written and researched article on Mexico.

I would like to comment that everybody is obssessed with growth rates. It is a variable we should consider, but you cannot easily compare growth rates between countries; it's not a race. Mexico grew at a steady 6%-8% during the 60s and 70s, to the point that it was called the "Mexican Miracle". Brazil and China are going through their growth spurt right now. Comparing makes no sense. We can say that Mexico is now a young adult, whereas Brazil and China are economic teenagers.
All of Mexico's macroeconomic and social variables are currently superior to Brazil and China; eventually they may or may not reach Mexico's levels, but that's far in the future.
Also, China and Brazil have higher populations; all numbers should be reported on a per capita basis for true comparison.
And as an example, I'll leave you with a little known statistic: on a per capita basis, Mexico received in 2010 1.6 times more foreign direct investment that Brazil, and almost 7 times more than China.

"In the ten years to 2010, income per person grew by 0.6% a year, one of the lowest rates in the world."

Disgracefully low rate, even worse since Mexico is a developing country, and worse still when you compare it with the BRICs (China rose its pci by 25% just in the last three years AFTER the 2008 GFC)

" Exports account for nearly a third of Mexico’s trillion-dollar GDP, and most go to the United States...America’s share of them has fallen from 89% in 2000 to perhaps 78% this year "

No normal country with a trillion dollar economy would allow 80% of its exports, which by the way account for a gigantic third of GDP (the figure for China is 27, for Argentina 21, for Brazil 11, for the US 11, for most large EU nations around 23, but it is mostly intra-european) to go to one single trading partner.

Such dependence, first,on foreign trade, and then, on monogamous foreign trade,being Mexico such a large and diversified economy, is worse than odd:it is an economic pathology. And naturally it has a lot to do with the low GDP growth rate, not just because of the 2008 contagion effect but also for the reason that economies can not increase their pci if their production is centered on low value added activities exogenously directed.

"From Uncle Sam to Uncle Slim...after accounting for purchasing power home landlines in Mexico cost 45% more than the OECD average and business lines 63% more ... basic broadband access costs nearly TEN TIMES more (per megabit per second of advertised speed) than in the rest of the OECD."

(And that´s advertised speed, not real speed)

You gave but one example among a myriad such cases. Monopolies and the incestuous relationship between them and Government are chocking the Mexican economy to death, and turning the democratic process into a farce.

Of course that could also be said, albeit in as yet a smaller degree, of other larger nations.

A very good and accurate article by The Economist. I think that it is important to point out that Mexico's macroeconomic estability has been preserved for the last 15 years: inflation, interest rates and currency exchange. Brazil and China might be growing a higher rates but this has been also at an inflacionary cost. There is no benefit in economic/salaries growth if this is hampered by inflation. I also noticed that Brazil's GDP growth has slowed down to the same level as Mexico's. The more developed countries become the more moderated is their economic growth. For example Germany or Japan hardly grow at 4%+. Mexico is not only building monuments: in the last 5 years, expenditure in infrastructure has been the highest in its conteporary history.

Mexico is a textbook example of a country ruled by special interest groups. Just consider the fact that the current president was able to win the elections only through a "political pact with the devil", i.e. with the leader of the mighty teachers' union.
The Mexican economy truly is plagued by monopolies and oligopolies, both private and public. The left whines about the private oligopolies, the right criticizes the public-owned monopolies... but at the end of the day, politicians from all parties know very well that they depend heavily on the support from special interest groups, so they avoid pushing through congress ambitious competition reforms.
In 2012 we will have a new president, but we can already envisage that all the candidates will seek alliances with those special interest groups. Like Pena Nieto with Televisa-TV Azteca, or Ebrard with the teachers' union. What a shame. I hope I will be proved wrong, but to me it seems that whoever comes into power in 2012 will once again be indebted to special interest groups and thus will not seek to promote reforms to increase competition throughout the economy.